At 08:52 AM 01/30/07, you wrote: >Ken Arck wrote: > > ....but the morons who run our State are considering this (time to > > mobilize Oregon hams....(coming to a State near you?) > > > > http://www.leg.state.or.us/07reg/measures/sb0200.dir/sb0293.intro.html > >I cannot believe how incredibly stupid legislators are. The problem is >NOT with using a cell phone, or anything else. The problem is that (1) >these people are CRAPPY drivers, and do not belong on the road in the >first place, and (2) driver's education in the is country is >ridiculously horrible!
It seems to me that when I was in high school we had REAL drivers ed classes. The kids today get maybe 1/3 of what I got. Todays young drivers are getting the rest as on-the-job-training - at the public's expense... You reap what you sow... >Testing needs to be made MUCH tougher. How about >doing something about THAT??? My dad learned how to drive in Cripple Creek Colorado in the mid to late 1920s... used to joke that he paid $5 for the privilege to assemble his first car from a junkyard, and that he had to learn how to drive on roads that had a bend every 500 yards, no guard rails and drops of 3,000 feet. I remember him complaining that you could lose your license in Colorado for incompetent driving and go to and adjoining state and get a new one. He also said that the country needed a multi-tier driving license - with the license printed on semi-transparent colored plastic, with cars built with a clip at the left side of the windshield to hold the license. Someone in the next lane (a cop?) could look over and see what color the license was,and if there was one stripe or two contrasting color stripes across it. In addition to the learners permit, there would be a beginners solo license - daylight and surface streets only. The next step is 24 hrs on surface streets. The next step gets you daylight freeways. The next step gets you 24 hour freeways - but it would take a year to get there. His opinion was that if people had a years experience before they could drive at night on freeways or interstates you would have a lot more competent drivers that way. I'm not in full agreement with my dad's opinion, but I do agree that the existing system could use some improvement. I see a LOT of incompetent drivers on the roads today - and not all of them are teenagers. There's a local joke: How can you tell when the (insert derogatory term for a racial group famous for being incompetent drivers) move into your neighborhood? The (insert derogatory term for a class of illegal aliens that have a reputation for no insurance) go out and get car insurance the next day. >It ticks me off when I see these people that insist on talking with >their hands, holding the phone in one hand and waving the other around >while driving, not even looking at the road. And you know darned well >they are just 'rag-chewing'. Or the ones that have a cellphone in one hand and are applying eye shadow with a brush held in the other - and driving with their knees on the freeway at 60mph.... Those are the ones I'd like to be able to make a 1-800 call and give someone their license plate number ... >As is likely the case for most people here, I learned how to drive with >the steering wheel in one hand and a microphone in the other. If you >can't do that, you do NOT belong on the road! I had a old Ma Bell telephone operators carbon button mic headset (look at a 1960s photo of a switchboard) hooked to a Moto 80 D control head. Key down on the PTT and suck 35 amps at 12v... watch the headlights dimm.... The PTT was a modified foot style high beam switch - take out the detent and make it momentary. At one point I had a rotary switch that connected it to any one of four radios... 4freq 6m, 8freq 2m, 4freq 220 (2m Motran modified) and 6freq 440. Mike WA6ILQ
